Gerrit Blank, 14, was on his way to school when he saw “ball of light” heading straight towards him from the sky. A red hot, pea-sized piece of rock then hit his hand before bouncing off and causing a foot wide crater in the ground.
The teenager survived the strike, the chances of which are just 1 in a million – but with a nasty three-inch long scar on his hand.
He said: “At first I just saw a large ball of light, and then I suddenly felt a pain in my hand. “Then a split second after that there was an enormous bang like a crash of thunder. The noise that came after the flash of light was so loud that my ears were ringing for hours afterwards. When it hit me it knocked me flying and then was still going fast enough to bury itself into the road,” he explained.
Scientists are now studying the pea-sized meteorite which crashed to Earth in Essen, Germany.
This article mentions other close encounters of the outerspace rocky kind. The kind that brought life here to Earth?
Think of it as a pea sized object being fired from a rifle (bullet) the boom was probably the sonic boom it made traveling slower than the object.
Think of lightning bolt, thunder.
Most likely grazed his hand without any deflection.
Maybe this guy just burned his hand on an iron. The evidence of a meteor in the story, either other witnesses mentioned or physical evidence, it pretty non-existent.
Certainly more fun to tell your friends you were hit with a meteor than you had an accident frying an egg, and then it spirals from there to the gullible international press. How embarrassing for all of humanity.
#20 No, and I challenge you to produce even one example where I did that.
My satire stands…everything is spun as the right’s fault, or incited by the right…
It’s antifreedom to do that…but likely you statists will be dead and your children and their children will suffer for your sins, under tryanny…because you wouldn’t consider facts…you had to cling to your eco fantasies and unjust demands “outcomes” be equal…
But we are not all equally motivated to work for a living…so the only way you can make things equal for the sluggards is to rob producers.
Your children and grandchildren will curse you…while we will be heroes….those who tried to roll back your STATISM.
#19 – JimR
No problem.
#23, Alfred1, re: “#20 No, and I challenge you to produce even one example where I did that.”
I am unable to search back through Dvorak archives, or I would show you where you bring out your prejudices and religious beliefs at every opportunity, regardless of the topic.
Your first post today could be an example in fact. Trying to stir up some religious retort, weren’t you? Oops, you succeeded again.
#25 You are able, only unwilling…because you realize you have no proof for your charge…but your posts aren’t about truth, they are about your claims.
You want everyone accept your claims without proof, because that is what you did…
Anything leftist was ok, anything right is not. That is criteria for truth.
You are a STATIST wihtout a clue….unable to argue your points logically, so you rely upon ad hominem to advance your lunacy.
You believe it suffices to identify me as “religious” to render all I say unsound.
The only thing you do by that tactic, is prove how clueless you are.
#25 – JimR – I am unable to search back through Dvorak archives…
Use Google… type in what you want to search on and add site:dvorak.org after it. Example.
Ah, thanks again Jägermeister…
One example? ok… blaming the left for Muslim extremism…
TOPIC: Video – Demographic Doom?
Re post #33:
“No…expand the Bush Doctrine…spread Democracy…
The problem is the left only gives lip service to democracy…they really want only the freedom to enforce their political correctness on others…and a green life style…
Proving how much they don’t appreciate freedom, is their common assertion Islamic nations can’t be free…genetically incapable of freedom and other such disparaging theories…
If you know freedom in your heart and mind, as conservatives do, then you know its power to overcome totalitarianism, religious or secular….
But Now you understand why Islamic nations persecute Christianity fiercely…we are the only effective weapon against Islam…
the alternative lifestyles and blasphemies of the left only inflame Islamic fire.”
Fire up the BS Meter..
a pea sized projectile “bounces” off someones hand (without obliterating the kids hand??) –yet retains enough energy to create a 1 foot crater???????????????
please…
sounds like someone wanted to talk about the object but needed a way to validate it’s discovery. -or the whole story is a BS distraction (news filler)
“”I am really keen on science and my teachers discovered that the fragment is really magnetic,” said Gerrit.”
-of course it’s magnetic. the whole universe operates on electromagnetism.
*shrug*
-s
# 16 tj said, “I know you aren’t saying that a pebble traveling at 2kph has the same destructive force as that same pebble traveling at “30,000
I said, F=MA
Thank God the text box has been fixed! Now we all can move on to the next BIG issue.
#30 i don’t know if you got that formula off of wikipedia or something, but I think what you’re looking for is
k = mv*2
read: kinetic energy is mass times velocity squared.
The formula you used refers to the force needed to ACCELERATE a mass through a vacuum. kinetic energy and force are not the same thing.
Speaking of vacuums, the “pea-sized” meteorite would be subject to some kind of terminal velocity due to friction with the air. I haven’t run the numbers but for a pebble to cause a foot-wide hole in concrete it would need to have such ridiculous kinetic energy that the speed it travels at would be WAY outside of any reasonable terminal velocity in our atmosphere. Unless anyone would care to argue that the density of that meteorite is astronomically higher than that of the densest stuff we’ve come across. What I’m saying is that a pebble that small COULD NOT cause a foot wide crater in concrete, regardless of the speed it could attain travelling through air. And that’s notwithstanding the ridiculous notion that it “bounced” off a kid’s hand, not having enough kinetic energy to resist deflection, but having enough to create such a crater. My bullshit meter is reading “Al Gore”, the end of the scale you don’t see very often even in today’s world.
Is there anything at all true about this story? Anything?
# 32 Fartacus said,
Is there anything at all true about this story? Anything?
Having read it on a ‘science’ blog with responses, only that it was published… all other data seem to be ‘iffy’ at best.
J/P=?
Fart = Methane * ‘aperture’
F=MA
Alfred1, my post #28 was in answer to your post #26… just in case you didn’t connect the two.
As I pointed out, you have your pet peeves that you blame everything on as well (Obama, homosexuals, etc.) So don’t think you are so special that you are above being wrong, or criticized. As it turns out, your rant in post #26 is completely FOS.
#34 I fail to see where anything I said isn’t factually incorrect.
You don’t argue, that is, discuss the premises of my position, and then show how they are unsound or invalid…
You just make claims…you are right.
You are a bozo.
Craola.
A high caliber rifle shot point blank at the ground wouldn’t make a foot wide crater.
Million to one odds? In all of recorded history
he is only the 2nd one hit out of billions of
people who have lived.
What scientist says a meteor evaporates?
Alfred1, you really do have mental issues. I did exactly what you described I didn’t do. Just like for your religious beliefs, you have to block out reality to maintain your delusions of intellect. Seek help.
Kinetic energy as stated by #32 is important and is proportional to velocity squared. But in consideration of damage caused by any collision you must also consider the momentum transfer and the comparative densities of the projectile and target. Why do you think the military use depleted uranium for shells.
But the real important aspects of this story are these strangely missing items.
No pictures of injury.
No pictures of crater.
No pictures of meteor.
# 32 Fartacus said, “The formula you used refers to the force needed to ACCELERATE a mass through a vacuum.”
It’s the 2nd law of motion. It is not specifically about accelerating a mass in a vacuum.
# 32 Fartacus said, “pea-sized” meteorite would be subject to some kind of terminal velocity due to friction with the air. I haven’t run the numbers but for a pebble to cause a foot-wide hole in concrete it would need to have such ridiculous kinetic energy that the speed it travels at would be WAY outside of any reasonable terminal velocity in our atmosphere.”
What is the terminal velocity of a .357 hollow point at sea level? Have you ever heard of one traveling faster than that?